HEALTH LAW AND POLICY FORUMS

The Forum features lectures, meetings and other health law and policy activities.

Lectures are held at noon at the Suffolk University Law School, 120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA. All talks will be held in the 1st floor function room. Click the following link for directions to Suffolk Law School.

February 7, 2012 - Susan Dentzer. "Putting Meat on the Bones of Health Reform: Health Affairs and the Implementation of the Affordable Care Act"

Susan Dentzer, Editor-in-Chief of Health Affairs, gave a presentation on the major considerations involved in implementing the Affordable Care Act and how the nation's leading health policy journal approaches publishing about major transitions in the structure of health insurance and health care delivery systems, and efforts to deliver higher quality health care at a lower cost.

SUSAN DENTZER is the editor-in-chief of Health Affairs, the nation’s leading peer-reviewed journal focused on the intersection of health, health care and health policy in the United States and internationally. One of the nation’s most respected health and health policy journalists, she is an on-air analyst on health issues with the PBS NewsHour, and a frequent guest and commentator on such National Public Radio shows as This American Life and The Diane Rehm Show.

Dentzer is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences, and of the Council on Foreign Relations, the independent, nonpartisan membership organization and think tank dedicated to exploring the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries.

At Health Affairs, Dentzer oversees the journal’s team of nearly 30 editors and other staff in producing the monthly publication and web site. Health Affairs has been described by the Washington Post as the “Bible” of health policy. Its articles and their authors are frequently cited in the Congressional Record and in congressional testimony as well as in the news media. The Health Affairs web site recorded 50 million page views in 2010.

Before joining Health Affairs in May 2008, Dentzer was on-air Health Correspondent at the PBS NewsHour. From 1998 to 2008, she led the show’s unit providing in-depth coverage of health care and health policy. Prior to joining the PBS NewsHour, she was chief economics correspondent and economics columnist for U.S. News & World Report, and previously was a senior writer at Newsweek.

Dentzer’s other work in television has included appearances as a regular analyst or commentator on CNN and The McLaughlin Group. Her writing has also earned her several fellowships, including a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University, where she studied health economics and policy, and a U.S.-Japan Leadership Program Fellowship, during which she researched the effects of the rapidly aging Japanese population.

Dentzer is an elected member of the National Academy of Social Insurance, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization made up of the nation's leading experts on social insurance, is a fellow of the Hastings Center, a nonpartisan research institution dedicated to bioethics and the public interest.

Dentzer is a member of the Board of Directors of Research!America, the nation's largest not-for-profit public education and advocacy alliance committed to making research to improve health a higher national priority. She is also a member of the Board of Overseers of the International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian organization providing relief to refugees and displaced persons around the world. She chairs the IRC board’s Program Committee, which oversees the organization’s activities in resettling refugees in the United States and in dealing with refugees and displaced persons in roughly 25 countries. Formerly, Dentzer served on the Board of Directors of the Global Health Council and was its chair from 2008-2010.
 
A graduate of Dartmouth and holder of an honorary master of arts from the institution, Ms. Dentzer is a Dartmouth trustee emerita and chaired the Dartmouth Board of Trustees from 2001 to 2004. She serves on the Board of Overseers of Dartmouth Medical School.

Watch a video of Ms Dentzler's presentation.  (Requires Windows Media Player)

 April 18, 2012 -  Stephen I. Vladek. "Enforcing Medicaid's Equal Access Mandate: The Obama Administration, the Supreme Court, and the Douglas Case."

Stephen I. Vladeck is a Professor of Law and the Associate Dean for Scholarship at American University Washington College of Law. His teaching and research focus on federal jurisdiction, constitutional law, national security law, and international criminal law. A nationally recognized expert on the role of the federal courts in the war on terrorism, he was part of the legal team that successfully challenged the Bush Administration's use of military tribunals at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 (2006), and has co-authored amicus briefs in a host of other major lawsuits, many of which have challenged the U.S. government's surveillance and detention of terrorism suspects. Vladeck, who is a co-editor of Aspen Publishers' leading national security law casebook, has drafted reports on related topics for a wide range of organizations, including the First Amendment Center, the Constitution Project, and the ABA's Standing Committee on Law and National Security.

In Douglas v. Independent Living Center of Southern California, 565 U.S. , 132 S. Ct. 1204 (2012), the United States Supreme Court reviewed a decision in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had held, among other things, that Medicaid providers and beneficiaries were able to challenge state Medicaid rate reductions in an action based on the Supremacy Clause.   Because the posture of the case had changed after oral argument, the Court vacated the judgments and remanded the cases so that the lower courts could determine whether the plaintiffs were now required to seek review under the Administrative Procedure Act rather than in a Supremacy Clause Action. As the Court noted, the change in posture does not change the substantive question whether the California rate reductions are consistent with federal law, "But it may change the answer." The answer may change because the courts may now be required to give deference to the intervening action of the United States Department of Health and Human Services in approving certain of the California rate changes.
 
Stephen I. Vladeck, the Health Law and Policy Forum speaker, will discuss the issues involved in, and the implications of, the Court's ruling in Douglas. Professor Vladeck filed an amicus brief in Douglas, arguing, on behalf of former senior officials of the Department of Health and Human Services ("HHS") or its predecessor, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare ("HEW"). The amici responded to the brief filed by the U.S. Department of Justice as amicus curiae in support of the Petitioner, which argued that private enforcement of the "equal access" provision ofthe Medicaid Act is inconsistent with congressional intent and would interfere with the Secretary's discretion to administer the Medicaid program. In this brief, the former HHS officials argued that HHS has never embraced such a view of private enforcement. To the contrary, it has consistently been HHS's position that private enforcement is not just appropriate, but also necessary to ensure that states comply with this critical regulatory mandate. Nor is there anything to the Justice Department's suggestion that private enforcement would interfere with the Secretary's discretion. As a matter of both historical practice and current law, private enforcement only complements the Secretary's authority.

Watch the video of Stephen Vladek's presentation at Suffolk. (Requires Windows Media Player)

Previous Health Law and Policy Forums.